


Once Upon A December

by daylilies



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Multi, alternate universe- anastasia, but also jokes and romance, my petersburg is a peter nureyev song and i will prove it, t rating right now just to be safe, the most cliche title known to man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daylilies/pseuds/daylilies
Summary: Juniverse Anastasia AU in which Juno is Anya, Peter is Dmitri Mag is Vlad, and I futher the theory that Brahma is Space Russia.





	Once Upon A December

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't published anything ever but this idea kept going through my head for months so I sat down and wrote the damn thing. I can't promise updates will be that frequent but I'll try my best.

New Kinshasa at night is, if possible, even more beautiful than it is during the day. On the outskirts of the city there isn’t any noise at all except for the occasional rumble from the endless sea of clouds. At present there is a storm going on below, and every so often a burst of lightning creates a dim yellow glow in the vast expanse of indigo-gray clouds and deep black sky. 

The stars are always visible on New Kinshasa, and tonight they shine especially bright over the few citizens who remain on the streets at such a late hour. Simulated candle light glows in the windows of the pastel buildings and catches on the jeweled rings and necklaces and bracelets of the people who pass below. Many of them are heading home from the palace, where a ball is in progress, and they are dressed accordingly. The palace itself is still glowing, of course, the turquoise walls illuminated by so many windows and lanterns and flood lights outside that from the inside one can barely tell that night has fallen at all. This is good news for the people at the party who have plenty of room for food and drink and dancing, but it is bad news for the two youngest members of the royal family, who are trying desperately to go to sleep.

“I hate parties,” Juno grumbles, lying facedown on his bed with several pillows and two comforters squashed on top of his head in an attempt to drown out the lights and music. On the other side of the room, Ben is sprawled out on his back on a bare bed, having lost his pillows and blankets to Juno’s makeshift barricade.

“It’ll be over soon. There’s dignitaries coming tomorrow and Ma’s gonna want to be awake when she talks to them . Half an hour, tops.”

“Even that’s too long. You gotta promise to never have parties this late when you’re Emperor.” 

“It’s tradition, Juno. No matter who gets the throne, he’s gonna have to throw a bunch of fancy balls and galas like this one. Ma probably had to sit through this same thing when Grandma was in charge, and now she gets to enjoy herself. And someday we’ll grow up and bother our kids with the loudest sitars money can buy, the same way Ma’s doing now.”

Juno grunts from beneath his pillow mound. “I don’t think Ma’s ever enjoyed anything. But hey, if you say so.”

Ben wrinkles his nose at Juno’s sniping, but doesn’t push it. Nine years of living with his twin have taught him that sometimes Juno just can’t be stopped from complaining. Instead of arguing, they sit without talking for a few minutes. Juno tries out other noise blocking pillow formations with little success, while Ben gets up and goes over to the window to stare out into the city, squinting through the glare from the floodlights to see which dukes were making complete fools of themselves.

Both are so lost in their activities that they miss the first knock at the door. After a few seconds there’s another, slightly sharper this time, which brings Ben back to the present. He knocks into Juno on his way to the door in an attempt to get his attention, but it only results in Juno hitting him with a pillow. They scuffle for a minute as Ben tries to pull Juno to a sitting position and Juno does his best imitation of a sack of bricks. A sack of bricks with a talent for creating weapons out of the softest bedding in all of the Outer Rim. Ben grabs a discarded pillow from the floor, ready to exact his revenge and turn their scuffle into an all out war, when a third knock comes. He settles instead for tossing the pillow back onto his bed as he heads towards the door. When he pulls it open the man on the other side looks tired, but his face breaks into a grin at the sight of his grandson. 

“Juno! Just the princess I’ve been looking for. I’ve got a present for you, now take it quickly before Benten sees. I don’t have a gift for him so you must keep this a secret.”

“Grandpa, I know you know who I am,” Ben says with a smile as Juno sits up behind him and slides from his bed, abandoning his pillow fort in pursuit of something more interesting. The door opens wider as Ramses, the dowager emperor, steps fully in the room and kneels down to face his grandsons. He’s still dressed in his most formal outfit, having come straight from the ball, and yet the smile on his face is still brighter than any of the tiny suns and planets adorning his collar. His hands are both hidden behind his back, a fact which does not escape Juno’s notice.

“Why’d you bring presents? Where are you going,” he asks, eyes boring into Ramses’ with all the intensity of New Kinshasa’s lasers. 

“You’re quite the little investigator, Juno,” Ramses laughs, “the constables could learn a thing or two from you.” When neither of his nephews offers a response, he sighs and sits down. Juno and Ben join him on the floor.

“I’m going to Mars for a few months- don’t worry, it’s nothing too serious, only a short vacation. I’m old, and your mother insisted. But, I have a gift to give you before I go.” Ramses finally pulls his hands from behind his back, and reveals two pastel music boxes, one blue, one orange. Engraved on the sides of the boxes, bordered in golden vines, are identical pictures of life on New Kinshasa; a band in a park, two men standing at a railing staring into the clouds, a child with a macaron in each hand. Ramses pulls out a key and opens the orange box, and a song begins to play; the unofficial anthem of the city. It’s a simple tune learned by every aspiring sitarist, and so it’s heard anywhere and everywhere on New Kinshasa. 

Ben smiles gently at the song and picks up the music box to examine it more closely. Juno shuffles closer and he and Ben stare, entranced by the music and the intricate dancing figures, their earlier scuffle forgotten. Ramses smiles as he watches them. The music from the ball has died down and the blinding lights have faded, and now there is only the music box, his grandsons’ gentle breathing, and the rosy imitation candlelight that’s lit the palace since Ramses was young. His grandsons come from a long line of short tempers, and seeing the prince and princess of Brahma still so close makes Ramses uncharacteristically calm about the future.

When the music fades and the spell ends, Ramses takes a music box in each hand. Ben grabs the blue one while Juno takes the orange, and both put them carefully on their bedside tables. When they come back, each takes his respective key and puts it around his neck. 

“Thank you, Grandpa,” Ben says sincerely, and Juno follows close behind him.

“Yeah, thanks. They’re,” Juno yawns, his exhaustion catching up to him, “they’re nice.”

“You’re welcome,” Ramses says as he stands and makes his way to the door. “I’ll let you two sleep now. I bet it’s been a very tiring day. Goodnight Juno, Benzaiten, we’ll see each other again before you know it.” 

“Goodbye,” Ben and Juno chorus as the door shuts gently behind their grandfather. They wait a few minutes for his footsteps to retreat before turning to each other.

“That isn’t a vacation he’s going on,” says Juno, at the same time as Ben says:

“It sounds like he doesn’t think he’ll see us again.”

“It makes sense. No one from the Outer Rim’s gone to Mars in years. If that’s really where he’s going…”

“It could be some kind of secret mission. Maybe he’s going to try and work something out. He’s the galaxy's oldest living politician, they could use his advice.”

“Maybe, but something doesn’t make sense.”

“We should ask Ma about it, she’ll know.”

Juno snorts, “you can, if you want.”

“Come on Juno, she can’t be mad at you forever.”

“Maybe you can’t, but she definitely can.”

< class="tab"p>“Juno-”

“It doesn’t matter, we need to figure out what’s wrong. I’ll ask the servants tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Ben says after some hesitation. “Goodnight Juno.”

“Goodnight Benten.”

\------------  


Ramses leaving for Mars seems to set off a chain of events that makes life in the palace tenser by the hour. When Juno asks, the servants say they haven’t heard anything about the dowager emperor’s leaving, and when Ben asks, Sarah tells him it was nothing to worry about. 

Juno and Ben aren’t technically allowed to leave the palace without supervision, but no rule can stand in the way of Juno’s brains and Ben’s charm. Before Ramses left it was just for fun. They would escape into the open air markets and charming parks for a couple hours and return to the palace before Sarah could hear about it. Now when they escape it’s for their own peace of mind, when things become to tense without their knowing why. On the streets of New Kinshasa it’s common knowledge that the Outer Rim is losing more and more battles. The dead are piling up both off and on Brahma (another thing Juno and Ben are not supposed to know) and someone somewhere is going to have to answer for it.

They talk about it only once, in the middle of the night after a day in which the Solar Army had taken Balder. There are no lights on in the palace in case of an air raid, but the air itself seems electrified, waiting.

“Ben,” Juno says, quietly in case there’s someone still roaming the halls, “what do you think’s gonna happen?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“It’s not gonna be good, is it?”

“Probably not,” Ben says, and inhales deeply before continuing, “Juno?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you scared?”

Now Juno inhales, thinking the question over before he concedes, “yeah.”

“Me too.”

“What if- nevermind.”

“What if what?”

“Nevermind, it’s dumb.”

“You’re dumb,” Ben jokes, but it falls flat and Juno huffs quietly, “tell me what it is. Please.”

“What if we traded keys? To the music boxes, I mean, so we’ll always… I don’t know, have each other with us? I guess? I told you it was dumb.”

“Nah, let’s do it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’ll be symbolic. Something to connect us, even if we get separated.” 

Somewhere in the distance there’s the rumble of an explosion. Too far away to be in the city, but still too close for comfort. Juno and Ben look to each other, and for the third time ever in Juno’s memory, in the dim ambient light of their bedroom, Ben looks helpless. The rumbling fades, and Juno can’t stand to see his brother so scared anymore. He clears his throat.

“Nah I just figured we can’t forget each other if we’re the only ones able to open each other’s stuff.” Ben laughs lightly.

“I think the keys work for both boxes, Super Steel.”

“Oh, then I’m gonna take yours across the galaxy and throw it in a volcano.”

“I’ll throw yours into a star.”

“Don’t try to out-drama me.”

“Fine. You’ll always win anyway, drama queen-”

“Drama princess,” Juno corrects.

“Shut up and give me your key.”

“Alright, alright,” Juno says as he walks over to Ben’s side of the room. Ben sits up and takes his key from around his neck as Juno removes his own key. They trade in silence, both feeling the moment to be too important to joke through. When the blue ribbon lies around Juno’s neck and the orange ribbon around Ben’s, they both lie down again. 

“Goodnight Juno,” Ben says.

“Goodnight.” 

\------------

 

Neither Juno nor Ben have any idea why their mother is holding another party with the war going so badly. Ramses has not returned, he’s stuck on Mars, but there’s no other information available about him, a fact that upsets the empress as well as her sons. Both of those sons are now being prepared to rule (despite Juno’s assertion, when told, that he was completely prepared to leave the throne to Ben) and they have access to more military information than most nearly-eleven-year-olds would. 

Even so, it takes some snooping for Juno to uncover the fact that Brahma is nearly bankrupt, the entire planet in danger of violent uprising. But Sarah, Empress to the last, insists that they must not be intimidated. And so, there is a party going on at the palace. The walls practically glow, the music is loud, but now Juno and Ben are both in attendance in uncomfortably heavy formal attire. The golden embroidery on their jackets shines in the light of the chandeliers like Ramses’ had that last night. On their heads sit crowns inlaid with turquoise and red gems that are so heavy Juno and Ben had needed to practice wearing their crowns before the ball itself in order to avoid dropping them during the dancing.

As the night goes on Ben grows more tired and Juno grows more closed off. He keeps glancing around sullenly, like he would do anything to be anywhere else. Ben makes questioning expression, and Juno tries unsuccessfully to shrug it off. If it weren’t for the etiquette of official royal functions, Ben would drag him back to their room and ask what’s wrong without a second’s hesitation. But they can’t leave without Sarah’s permission, and she needs them to remain in the ballroom looking regal and youthful and symbolic. So Ben is stuck and Juno clearly feels badly but hell if Ben can do anything about that until the party ends in three hours. 

The time passes slowly. Dinner is loud, and the guests who can begin to drink in earnest. Juno and Ben sit at their mother’s left and right hands, respectively, making what little conversation they can with each other at the high table.Then some musician begins an upbeat song, and guests flock to the dance floor. 

Juno and Ben dance with guests and extended family members and Ben charms people like it’s second nature, while Juno stays out of the way. He hasn’t been in the mood for a party all night, but half of being royalty is doing things you aren’t in the mood for because other people think you should. It’s exhausting, and all Juno wants to do is go back to his room and try to fall asleep, even if he never can during these parties. He’s in the middle of feeling irritated with everything and everyone when Ben puts a hand on his shoulder and leads him over to the wall in front of the giant portrait of some long dead ancestor.

“How’s it going?”

“I need to go to sleep. I hate this.”

“I know, Super Steel, believe me. This outfit is heavier than I am after Ma’s birthday dinner.” Juno cracks a small smile, but before he can respond-

“What are you two doing?” Sarah Steel towers over her sons, appearing without warning despite the fact that she’s weighed down with more skirts and jewels than Juno and Ben combined. “You should be talking to the people, getting to know them. You can’t rule a city when none of its citizens have ever heard you speak, can you?” This, she aims more at Juno than Ben. She always did like him less. 

“Sorry ma- mother,” Ben says, recovering himself and turning back into a model prince, “we’ll go back out in a few minutes.”

“You’d better make it now. People are going to wonder what’s so special that the prince and princess have to discuss it in private during a public event.”

“Of course, mother.”

Juno and Ben go back to the dancefloor, both more sullen than before. 

“Oh well. Might as well try to enjoy the party while it lasts,” Ben says, and just as he finishes his sentence all hell breaks loose.

There’s the sound of distant gunfire and grenades, the shouting of guards and dogs and alarms. The commotion outside is quickly drowned out by the commotion inside as people begin to shout. Someone says it's the Solar Army, someone else that it must be a coup, and soon there are hundreds of rumors circulating through the crowd. Then there's a crash as the palace doors are broken through, and billionaires and aristocrats are sent running and screaming looking for an exit. Juno and Ben don't move. They know better. Everyone in the room is as good as captured already. 

The grand ballroom has one grand entrance, through a set of double doors at the top of a staircase. There are smaller doorways for servants, or course, but the guests who find the doorways also find the people guarding them. Rough looking revolutionaries wearing black coats and thick gloves wearing flags that show them to be from Brahma itself.

The cries of the crowd grow into whispers and an eerie silence comes over the room as the grand entrance opens, and then is slammed shut. A thin woman with a hood over her head speaks from above the crowd. 

“We are the people of Brahma,” she says, her cold voice echoing through the ballroom, “for too long, we have suffered for nothing. This city and its people bring only pain and destruction to those down below, while they give nothing in return. There is only one way we can restore balance. New Kinshasa must be destroyed. Not only the city, but the people who built it. There was only one possible conclusion to come to you. You all must pay-”

But before she can finish someone screams and the chaos resumes, and this time there are flashes of gunfire as the soldiers of Brahma open fire on the crowd. Juno grabs Ben’s arm and begins to run, but they barely make it ten steps before they run into a huge man who grabs them and pulls them towards the stairs and up to the balcony. Both of the twins kick and twist and punch, but even with two of them doing all that they can, two ten year olds in party dress are nothing against a grown adult. And when they reach the top of the stairs Juno and Ben see Sarah, held tightly by two guards, her eyes panicked but her face solid as stone. 

Two more soldiers approach, one to hold each twin. Belatedly, Juno notices that the crowd has gotten quieter, and it takes him a moment to realize why. Then he understands, and his stomach turns with the thought of all of the people who had been dancing and full of life only ten minutes earlier now lying dead. 

Juno feels sick, and he looks to Ben for any kind of support, but Ben is staring at the hooded woman who stands before them. She makes a gesture, and the soldiers march Juno, Ben, and Sarah out through the palace and into the back garden overlooking the cloud sea. Like that night nearly two years ago, there is a storm going on below, and clouds light up sporadically. The stars overhead feel like distant, silent, witnesses to their situation. They provide no aid and no comfort as Sarah, Ben, and Juno are paraded through their own property until they are surrounded on 3 sides by armed revolutionaries. On the other side there is only a fence between them and a long drop. 

Everything happens quickly and quietly, without the pomp and circumstance that had filled the Steels lives until now. 

“The Steel dynasty ends here and now,” the hooded woman says. The revolutionaries raise their guns. Juno feels the metal of the music box key on his chest, still tied on a ribbon around his neck. A promise. 

Ben reaches out his hand, and Juno takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> And so it begins. Three things real fast:  
> \- Yes the music box song is the one played on New Kinshasa in the show. I kept thinking of it as Brahmese Wonderwall, so make of that what you will  
> \- I'm gonna be alternating back and forth between the movie and the musical version of Anastasia because this is a lawless wasteland  
> \- Why did I decide my first published work would be as long as this is probably gonna be? I don't know
> 
> Comments? Questions? Constructive criticism? Leave it all down below. Like I said I'm very new at this so crticism is much appreciated. Thanks for reading!


End file.
